Human waste in the streets a growing problem

Posted Oct 10 2018 03:45PM EDT

Updated Oct 10 2018 05:41PM EDT

NEW YORK (FOX5NY) - You've probably had to dodge some dog poop on the sidewalks of New York from time to time but the problem in the Big Apple is nothing like the mess they have in San Francisco. And the worst part is that a lot of it isn't from our furry friends but humans.

A real estate company looked at poop complaint data from big cities in the United States. The leader, by far, was San Francisco where there were 20,890 complaints last year... that's more than 450 per square mile of the city. By comparison, New York City only had 2,458 complaints and Chicago had less than 1,000 in 2017.

The site RealtyHop.com named San Francisco the Doo-Doo Capital in the U.S. because of the high number of complaints.

The Bronx was the dirtiest borough in New York City in 2017 by the number of unique poop complaints per square mile. However, there has been more poop complaints in Manhattan so far in 2018. As of August 31, 2018, Manhattan saw an average of 9.6 complaints per square mile.

While there is no correlation between homeownership and poop in New York City, there is a statistically significant negative correlation between median home value and poop complaints within a zip code. The higher the median home value, the fewer the poop complaints.

In San Francisco, 2017 was the worst year on record but 2018 is on track to beat that. Earlier this year, the city launched a new pilot program called the "Poop Patrol," which is set to scour targeted neighborhoods looking for human waste.

San Francisco, with its year-long comfortable temperatures, has a large homeless population. Out of the 7,499 homeless people recorded last year, about 58 percent, or 4,353 people, were marked as unsheltered. The other 3,146 were designated sheltered.